


The Screwdriver and the Rain

by kvaerx



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cousland attacks Howe with a screwdriver, F/M, I can’t decide if this is light-hearted and fun or serious and kind of sad, Let’s go with all of the above?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvaerx/pseuds/kvaerx
Summary: Leo Cousland attacks Howe with a screwdriver. Some social awkwardness, some feels, brief contentment.
Relationships: Leliana/Male Warden (Dragon Age), Male Cousland/Leliana (Dragon Age)
Kudos: 2





	The Screwdriver and the Rain

The waiting room in front of the principal’s office was quiet as the grave. Leo clutched the note in his hand. He’d had it since lunch—since the teacher had come around the corner and started yelling—and the waiting was agony. She had yelled at him for so long that he’d missed the rest of fourth period. Leo had still needed to sit through all of fifth period, sixth period, and seventh period. And now he was waiting still. School had ended and he should be hearing about his punishment, but instead he was sitting and waiting for his executioner to finish up with someone else before seeing to him.  
So Leo sat there and waited. The room around him had several chairs in a line against the wall with the windows. The chairs themselves were different than the chairs in the classrooms. Both the seats and the backs were padded and the arms were made out of wood with some decorative carvings and such. It wouldn’t be real wood though, probably just laminate. At each end of the row of chairs was a small table. Leo looked between the two. The right was further away while the left was closer to the offices. Dread was coiled in his gut like a snake, but he did his best to ignore it as he moved to the chair beside the left table.  
Leo crumpled the note in his fist. Several of the corners and edges of the paper still poked out so he pressed them back in. He’d just finished packing the paper into a tight ball when the door on the right side of the room opened.  
Sudden fear made him straighten up. It had been a fight, not an attack, both of them had injured the other—his head was still ringing, and Leo knew if he touched the place where the pain was worst that he’d find a lump there—but Leo would be the only one to get in trouble for it. All the teachers would know at this point and most of the students, anyone coming into the office probably.  
But it was only Leliana.  
“Leo?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”  
“Trouble during lunch,” he said. He held up the notes and did his best to unfold it into a rectangle. It was still too crumpled for her to be able to read it, but she didn’t need to in order to know what it meant. The school administration always printed all of the notes about rule breaking on neon paper so that every could tell what a person had done without needing to read the details. By contrast, the notes on plain white paper were for students with academic achievements.  
Leliana nodded and he dropped the paper on the table beside him. “Why are you here?” he asked.  
She came to sit beside him. “I want to make sure it’s alright if I miss the classes before lunch tomorrow so we can make sure everything is running properly for the assembly at the end of the day.”  
Leo dropped his head and smiled. In situations like this, they seemed so different. She seemed the responsible student and he seemed the delinquent. Anyone who saw them would have wondered how they came together.  
They weren’t really different though. She would have done the same thing he had if she had been there. The only difference would be that she wouldn’t have gotten caught.  
She was watching him, he saw. Guilt burned hot in his cheeks. They had promised in the beginning to be honest with each other.  
“I… er…” Leo said. “The trouble at lunch… I saw Howe and I just…” He leaned over the table and did his best to flatten out the note and smooth out the worst of the creases. Wordlessly, and before he could think twice about it, he passed the paper to her.  
The moment it took to read “Reason: physically attacking a teacher” felt like an hour.  
“It was a screwdriver,” he said, when she’d looked up from the paper, but before she could say anything. “I know it was him that did for my parents. I know it. But no one else cares, and I come to school every day and see him and—” He paused for a moment to take a gulp of air. “It was a screwdriver and I carried it with me because it wasn’t a weapon, not really, but it made me feel like I could do something. Not really anything, I know that now, but it felt like something. I didn’t do anything with it for a long time. I just kept it in my pocket and it made me feel a little better. A little safer. And then he was there today, at lunch, when I wasn’t expecting to see him. And he mentioned—” The words, which had been uncharacteristically spilling out of him dried up all at once.  
Leliana handed him back the note. “Don’t—”  
The door on the left flew open. Howe walked out of the office. When he saw Leo, his lips twisted into a snarl. “Boy.”  
Leo jumped to his feet with his fists clenched at his sides. He wanted to lunge at the man again. Wanted to open a gash on his other arm. He made himself stand still. They weren’t alone and he didn’t have his screwdriver. Besides, Leliana was watching. She would want him to be more subtle in his revenge.  
Howe looked like he wanted to say something more. The door was still open behind him though. He glanced back at it and said nothing before walking towards the main door.  
Leo glanced from him on the right to Leliana to the closing door to Principal Loghain’s office on the left. He took a deep breath and began the walk towards his punishment.

An hour and a half later, Leo left the office with a face that was burning red with both shame and anger. All of the other office staff were gone for the day and the lights were out. He walked through the empty hallways. His footsteps echoed as he fumed. Further on, he passed the janitor, jumping over his mop and continuing on. At the top of the stairs, he broke into a run, unwilling to spend another minute in the building.  
Leliana was waiting for him in the car. She had her lute in her hands and her lips were moving. Singing and playing, though he couldn’t hear it through the glass and metal of the car.  
Leo reached into his pocket for the key. He froze. It wasn’t there. He scrabbled again in his pocket and still couldn’t find it. Sudden fear seized him and he started to search through his backpack.  
The door opened. Leliana was leaning across the seat, hand extended. She was holding the key.  
“I took it before you went into the office.”  
Leo tossed his backpack into the back seat of the truck and closed the door behind himself. He sat there for a moment, leaning back into the seat with his eyes closed, saying nothing. He could hear the noises of Leliana putting the lute away in its case and returning it to is place in front of her feet.  
“Sorry about taking so long,” he said, eyes still closed. “I know you meant to talk to Loghain about the assembly preparation.”  
“It’s alright,” she answered. “Associate principal Guerrin came out of his office when you two started to yell at each other. He told me it would be fine.”  
Leo nodded. He took a breath, held it for a moment and then released it, opening his eyes. Seatbelt, key in the ignition, car in gear and they were off as he fell into the familiar rhythm of driving.  
It started to rain as they drove. Light drops against the windshield at first before the sun retreated behind the dark clouds and they turned into a veritable torrent. Leo dutifully set the windshield wipers to the proper speed. He could sense Leliana drawing the lute case into her lap and curling around it; she had told him many times how rain could ruin an instrument. That statement was always followed up by the qualifier that she didn’t really hate the rain, as it was good for her flowers. Her flowers. The ones she kept as a reminder of her mother. Leo would need a reminder of his own mother now. And his father.  
The thought made him clench his teeth and stomp down a little too quickly on the brake than was necessary.  
“What happened?” Leliana asked. “I know the two of you started yelling at each other, but the door was too thick to make out any of your words.”  
“Suspended.” He pulled the truck into its parking space beside Alistair’s. Being technically the child of an aristocrat meant he did get some benefits, thought Leo didn’t know if he considered them worth it for all the downsides it came with. That car meant the others would be home though. A small apartment, made even smaller by the number of people that were sharing it. It was the best Wynne could do for so many broken high schoolers though.  
“Have to help pay for Howe’s medical bills,” Leo said. “Loghain’s convinced I broke his arm.” He turned the car off and reached into the back for his bag.  
Leliana caught his arm. “We should wait here until the rain dies down a little more.”  
“You know we’re not supposed to be alone,” he said. “She even yells at Alistair and Morrigan for it and they’d just kill each other.”  
She smiled. “We’re not alone. There’s two of us. Besides,” she pointed out his window. “Wynne isn’t here to say anything about it.”  
He let go of the backpack and turned back around. “Alright.”  
They sat together in the silence. Leo felt like he should say something, apologize for making her wait so long or tell her that he planned on picking up more shifts during his suspension so he could pay for his mistake without straining any of the others.  
“I…” He stopped, unable to find the words.  
“We can talk about it if you want,” she said. “Or we can just sit here together if that’s easier.” She slipped her hand into his and began tracing lines across his knuckles.  
Leo nodded, even though none of what she’d said had been a question.  
They sat there for a long time, listening to the spring rain drum on the windshield and the roof and the bed of the truck. The truck got cold, the chill seeping into his bones, but Leliana’s hand was warm in his own and for the moment he didn’t care.  
An eternity later, Alistair ran out to them with an umbrella and rapped at the window with a frantic “Wynne’s coming! Inside quick!”


End file.
